From upstairs:

re: #116 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

You are accusing him of something he did not state.

If you want to object to his points then fine, but watch the video and then point out where he goes wrong.

Again, his primary belief is unassailable - that life/economics is about energy.

Why did the GOP try to make hay over gasoline prices? Because GOP strategists know that gasoline prices motivate Americans to make noise.

And why did gasoline prices spike? There are several proximate reasons, the big one being Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Berman points out that energy prices were already going up in, say, Europe.

In the past year or two there have been increasing noise being made in the wonk community over the problem of resources and international relations.

And as Berman points out, Putin is waging an energy war in order to weaken NATO countries.

Because our own interior political upheaval appears to be MAGA-idiots wanting to go back to the 17th century (I still expect someone to start saying they want witch trials) we take our eye off the global ball.

I too expect American lives to get even more difficult as we have to reckon our international dependence with the nativists idea of building a wall around the country and hiding our heads.

{{{so}}}

Okay, I’m a retired Professional Geoscientist, so let me take a swing at it:

He states that renewables will never supply more than 18% of total energy needs.

True/Not True/ or Needs Clarification?

Correct answer? Needs Clarification.

18% is the present mix of electricity in total energy consumption.

Can this be expanded? Of course it can. Could you use electricity to heat your house? Dry your clothes? Cook your food? Of course you can!

Can you improve battery density so that that it can support long distance transportation? Of course you can! It’s just a science/logistics problem.

Are you familiar with A Better Way? It’s was an Israeli concept that posited battery stations instead of gas stations, where a standardized battery, agreed upon as an industry standard could be swapped out in less than a minute with the nearly-spent being transported to a rack for recharge.

That’s at least a decade old and got shut down by Shell, BP, and Elf/Aquitane.

Could it work? Of course it could! They had built a demonstrator station where the time to switch out a used battery for a new one was less than 45 seconds. So if you could replace all of that with all of that with renewables, are we still looking at 18%? Of course not.

Please discuss.